The strange secret of William Delbert Gann: an account of a stock market scam

Abstract

This is the story of an investment swindle from one hundred years ago. William Delbert Gann was a stockbroker who was born in 1878 in Lufkin, Texas, and who died in Brooklyn, New York, in 1955. He wrote several books about stock and commodity market trading and published a list of eighty books, which he claimed were essential reading for those who wished to trade in such markets. He also published a number of what he called Master Forecasting Courses (or MFC’s) which claimed to teach the science of forecasting the price of stocks and commodities. In the 1930’s the MFC’s were offered at such a high price that it seems unlikely that many were sold.